Why apt madison

apt

A short while ago I asked this question – Does "apt-get -s upgrade" or some other apt command have an option to list the repositories the packages will be downloaded from?, about how to list the repositories packages would be upgraded from.
I have now learned another command, apt-cache madison which will list the repos a package will be installed from.

Why a name like madison which is in no way related to the task at hand?

Best Answer

The madison command was added in apt 0.5.20. It produces output that's similar to a then-existing tool called madison which was used by Debian server administrators. Several of these tools had names which were common female forenames, I don't know if there's a specific history behind that.

The madison tool no longer exists but there's a partial reimplementation called madison-lite (querying a local package archive, like the original), as well as a script called rmadison in devscripts which queries remote servers.

apt-cache madison is not emphasized because most of what it displays is also available through apt-cache showpkg and apt-cache policy.

Related Question